Volunteer engineer helps Westminster boy with first custom-built bike

Hand pedaled bikes like this often cost many thousands of dollars, and had been out of reach of Garreth Eckhard and his family until a serendipitous connection put them in touch with Dave Hall, a retired engineer and volunteer with the Carroll County chapter of V-LINC, a nonprofit group that organizes volunteer engineers to develop customized solutions for people with disabilities.

Hand pedaled bikes like this often cost many thousands of dollars, and had been out of reach of Garreth Eckhard and his family until a serendipitous connection put them in touch with Dave Hall, a retired engineer and volunteer with the Carroll County chapter of V-LINC, a nonprofit group that organizes volunteer engineers to develop customized solutions for people with disabilities.

Garrett Eckard, of Westminster, had always wanted a bicycle, but at 15 years old, it just hadn’t worked out for him.

Born with spina bifida, a condition where the spinal cord doesn’t form correctly, he’s unable to pedal a bicycle with his legs and must use a wheelchair.

But on Thursday evening, Sept. 6, Garrett was zipping across the grass of his grandmother’s yard in control of a sleek, red machine. A tricycle of sorts, powered by a hand pedal.

How did it feel to finally have a bike?

“Tiring,” Garreth said, a bit tongue in cheek and to laughs from everyone there.

“He’s ridden it every day since he’s gotten it,” Garrett’s mother, April, said.

“Now that school’s started, every day when he comes home, ‘Dad, can you get my bike out of the garage?’ ” his father, Terry, added.

Dave Hall built a tricycle for Garrett Eckard, 15, that allows him to use his hands to pedal it.

(Ken Koons)

Hand pedaled bikes like this often cost many thousands of dollars, and had been out of reach of Garrett and his family until a serendipitous connection put them in touch with Dave Hall, a retired engineer and volunteer with the Carroll County chapter of V-LINC, a nonprofit group that organizes volunteer engineers to develop customized solutions for people with disabilities.

“Our motto is ‘special solutions for special needs,’ ” Hall said, and the group often holds bike clinics to modify bicycles to better fit the needs of young riders with a disability.

Hall is a resident of Westminster’s Carroll Lutheran Village, the epicenter of Carroll County’s V-LINC activity, he said, and he often works in the village wood shop with another resident named Charlie. And Charlie happened to know Garrett’s grandmother.

“Charlie knew I built bikes, so Charlie got us together and we came out with some of our physical therapy people — we always have an engineer and a medical person do the evaluation — and good news, Garrett was an excellent candidate,” Hall said. “We started the project about four months ago, and now it’s complete.”

It was a unique project for Hall, in that the hand bike is fully designed from and built from scratch, rather than the modification of an existing bicycle.

“When Dave first came out and took some measurements, he started putting everything together with wood, because wood could be easily changed,” Terry said. “To see it go from wood to welded metal was amazing.”

Once the bugs were worked out of the wooden prototype, Hall began assembling the metal bike, finding many of the parts at a junk yard and getting them skillfully welded together by the team at Ridge Engineering in Hampstead.

They presented the finished bike to Garrett and his family on Aug. 29, looking factory fresh in bright red paint.

“Beautiful,” was what Garrett said he thought when he first saw it.

All told, the project was done for roughly $500, according to Hall.

“Hand cycles start around $2,500 and go way up,” he said of the typical retail price. “And even then they would need more customization.”

Terry said there is one bit of customization he would like to add his son’s bike.

“I do graphic design stuff,” he said. “I am going to put V-LINC on the front.”

The Eckards live close to Garrett’s grandmother, and it was not unusual for him to take his wheelchair down the road to her house, Terry said, but Garrett has been making the trip in more style and with company since getting the bike.

“Him and his sister ride together,” Terry said. “It was one thing to see him watch the bike for the first time, but to see them ride off together, that was like, aw, proud dad moment.”